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Is PBS worth continued federal funding?

JasonJason
edited January 2012 in Politics
Congress allocated $422 million to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to fund PBS in FY2010. Considering the network's plummeting ratings and our budget situation, is continued funding of PBS a priority? Andrew says there are other things that would be more appropriate to cut, but that's not really the question. I'm asking what side of the cost/benefit ratio you fall on.

I am tempted to say that this would be a non-issue and PBS would be easily defunded if it weren't for the Baby Boomers' emotional and nostalgic attachment to Sesame Street.
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Comments

  • AprecheApreche
    edited January 2012
    Yes, PBS is worth every penny, but don't take my word for it.

    Post edited by Apreche on
  • JasonJason
    edited January 2012
    You don't think anything has changed since the 1960s? Also, just throwing Fred Rogers out there is sort of an appeal to authority. Add to that the fact that when he says he's "very concerned about what's being delivered to this country," he's really just discriminating against a medium. He singles out cartoons. He also had a personal financial interest to protect.

    As a side note: I'm pretty sure that's Sheldon Cooper.
    Post edited by Jason on
  • ErwinErwin
    Yes, PBS is worth every penny, but don't take my word for it.

    THIS!
  • AprecheApreche
    You don't think anything has changed since the 1960s? Also, just throwing Fred Rogers out there is sort of an appeal to authority. Add to that the fact that when he says he's "very concerned about what's being delivered to this country," he's really just discriminating against a medium. He singles out cartoons. He also had a personal financial interest to protect.

    As a side note: I'm pretty sure that's Sheldon Cooper.
    It's possible to be biased and also correct.

  • JasonJason
    And you might well be, I'm not sure. But you're not providing very good evidence.
  • KapitänTimKapitänTim
  • TheWhaleSharkTheWhaleShark
    It's likely a non-issue, I think. I'd be sad if it went
    However, funding cuts shouldn't be considered in a vaccuum; if there are other, more frivolous things to cut, those should go first.
  • SailSail
    Aren't/weren't they trying to cut off NPR too?
  • AprecheApreche
    I love how you want to make government cuts the first thing people go for is tiny ass PBS. It costs almost nothing relative to other government expenditures and has an enormous positive impact on the lives of every person who grows up in the US with a television in their home. If anything we should fully fund it so they don't have to have stupid donation drives all the time.

    $422 million? That's less than the cost of four F-35 fighter jets. Those jets happen to be the single biggest project on the defense budget. If we have four fewer jets, are you seriously going to say that is going to make one shit of difference? If anything it will be a good thing to have less of them. Do we even need any? Don't we have enough already?

    Four airplanes with no purpose other than murder, or Sesame Street for the children? Yeah, I know where I want my money spent.
  • AndrewAndrew
    Four airplanes with no purpose other than murder.
    Umm yeah, you lost me here.

  • ErwinErwin
    Four airplanes with no purpose other than murder.
    Umm yeah, you lost me here.

    I know right, I want my Valkyries.
    Still between awesome super fast jets, I rather go for the Sesame Street and

  • JasonJason
    Using the same logic, I could also find more utilitarian ways to spend $422 million and have a greater public good than that provided by PBS. Second Harvest Food Bank can feed four people with $1 because of its purchasing power. That means channeling PBS' budget into food would create about two billion meals for America's starving children.

    But again, you missed the point. I didn't ask whether there are better things to cut. I asked whether the cost is appropriate to the benefit. I think it's a good question, especially when ratings show the number of PBS consumers has fallen by about a third in the past decade.
  • AprecheApreche
    Using the same logic, I could also find more utilitarian ways to spend $422 million and have a greater public good than that provided by PBS. Second Harvest Food Bank can feed four people with $1 because of its purchasing power. That means channeling PBS' budget into food would create about two billion meals for America's starving children.

    But again, you missed the point. I didn't ask whether there are better things to cut. I asked whether the cost is appropriate to the benefit. I think it's a good question, especially when ratings show the number of PBS consumers has fallen by about a third in the past decade.
    The cost is definitely worth the benefit. If viewership is dropping, we should allocate them more money for marketing and such.
  • JasonJason
    Awesome. Now maybe you could use supporting statements to convince me of your claim. #thisishowwedoit
  • AprecheApreche
    edited January 2012
    Awesome. Now maybe you could use supporting statements to convince me of your claim. #thisishowwedoit
    I put an extremely high value on Sesame Street alone. Without even believing in a deity, I consider continued work on that show to be the work of God. Creations such as these which will create a smile on the face of every human being are amongst the greatest of all human achievements, up there with landing on the moon. For those works to cease would be amongst the greatest tragedies, only actual massacres would easily outrank it. Why live in a world that does not include things like this?



    That doesn't even include any of the other great things on PBS such as Mystery!

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery!

    If anything, we need to give PBS more money so they can stream it all for free on the Internets so everyone can watch. Some of it is online, such as the excellent Frontline, but not everything.

    Perhaps the government should just cut all endowments to the arts because the benefit doesn't measure up to the cost? Art is not quantifiable. The emotion it creates in your heart, if you aren't a cold-hearted bastard, is worth more than all of the moneys. $442 million is a bargain. If anything we need more endowments. Look at what Canada is able to do with its endowments to animators and film makers. Truly stunning works affecting the lives of so many people in a positive way. Few things are more important, and defense is certainly not one of them.
    Post edited by Apreche on
  • JasonJason
    edited January 2012
    image
    $422 million, please, OR YOU'RE A COLD-HEARTED BASTARD.

    Of course we can put a price on art. My mother sold a painting once for $35. Jackson Pollock's No. 5 went for $156 million. We put a price on art all of the time. The question is how much is this particular art worth? If people aren't voting for PBS with their dollars, doesn't that mean the "art" is worth less?
    Post edited by Jason on
  • AprecheApreche
    Jackson Pollock's No. 5 went for $156 million. That was the value of the joy it brings to the one person who owns it. Multiply that by 300 million for the joy it would bring to every single person in the country. Multiply by 7 billion for the joy it would bring to the entire world. Even if you only value a work of art at $1, if it can affect one dollar's worth of the lives of a hundred million people that see it, that's $100 million. At $442 million, every US citizen would have to pay $1.50 a year to pay for PBS at its current funding level. I'd pay... $20 a year if necessary to keep it alive. I say put 'em down for $6 billion in the next budget.
  • gomidoggomidog
    I am generally for the idea of government funded arts and media, but with the caveat that these things are incredibly powerful tools for controlling the minds of the populace. I think that television, if viewed as a teaching tool, can still be used for both good (see Sesame Street) and evil (see Political Propaganda). I think that part of the right's gripe with PBS and NPR is not the cost, but that what is presented therein does not further their political narrative, and instead presents one that is more pro-science (Nova), Pro-Diversity, and in general more full of loving tolerance and, well, facts. I suppose in this sense one could definitely accuse the state media sources in the United States of being "left-leaning," if this is what these things represent.
  • AprecheApreche
    Just so happens that fact leaning is also left leaning.
  • open_sketchbookopen_sketchbook
    edited January 2012
    Man, you Americans and your aversion to funding stuff not intended to blow people up. I won't even use my own country's long history of support for the arts as an example because I have one better; the BBC. Thanks to extensive public funding, the BBC is basically the only useful news television left on the entire planet, except maybe Al Jazeera English. It's not beholden to corporate interests and has substantial protection from government meddling, and not only that but the merch and commercial projects connected to it makes a lot of money and create a shitload of jobs. The Brits spend about seven times as much on the BBC as the Americans spend on PBS, though primarily through broadcast licenses. Are you going to let the stupid little failing empire you broke away from beat you at television, the quintessential American art form?

    If arguments about art won't sway you, think about how much Seseme Street merch has been sold over the years, and then think about how much more could be sold if the program had any sort of support in the modern world.
    Post edited by open_sketchbook on
  • Hitman HartHitman Hart
    edited January 2012
    PBS and NPR should absolutely be supported and kept the frick away from government intervention. They should be America's BBC, something we as a country can turn to to get trust worthy information, news, and let our children consume, knowing they will learn more than they will watching Dora the Explorer.
    Post edited by Hitman Hart on
  • gomidoggomidog
    I would wager that they are going after them not for their lack of efficacy, but for the fact that they are actually quite effective, just not in the way Republicans desire. After all, you know that the Muppets and their pals are commies, right? Fox News told me so.
    I tell you, if you want people to feel patriotic and also help the arts, do like the National Film Board of Canada. Many of those animated shorts make me feel like a real good Canadian, real nostalgic and proud about Canadian heritage...and I'm not even Canadian!
  • Hitman HartHitman Hart
    We sorta have those, but they're all right wing crazy stuff that gets a lot of facts wrong.
  • gomidoggomidog
    Not funny stories about the time your mom got you a Toronto Maple Leafs Jersey instead of a Canadiens and your friends teased you?
    Or about the time where you were up with the survey crew and got et by black flies?
  • Hitman HartHitman Hart
    Ah, no, not like that. I was thinking more founding fathers and other "American mythos" type stories that inevitably get turned into kid's fodder. My mistake.
  • HMTKSteveHMTKSteve
    I don't receive a PBS signal so I can't comment on that. I do listen to NPR in the car and I consider it worth supporting.
  • GregGreg
    edited January 2012
    "Monster Went And Ate My Red Shoes." If that isn't worth federal funding I don't know what is.
    Post edited by Greg on
  • MattMatt
    Only a few posts in and this has to go down as one of the worst-defended debates I've ever seen on this forum. If you all love PBS and NPR shows so much, I'm sure they could be a completely independent, non-profit entity if they just charged you a few bucks to watch/listen to their shows.

    Yes I realize that these things are drop in the budget bucket, but you have to have a massively inflated ego to go around telling people you are going to tax their income, then spend it for "the greater good" on something so subjective as television and radio programming, when the barrier to entry for anyone who wants to produce great content in either of these markets on their own is incredibly low.
  • GregGreg
    "Monster Went And Ate My Red Shoes." If that isn't worth federal funding I don't know what is.
    Because apparently you people really don't know sarcasm when you see it.
  • MrRobotoMrRoboto
    As an outsider, I'd say that investing in PBS is a good idea, but add some stuff like cosmos, national geographic stuff, and more stuff catered to promote science, arts and the other subjects neglected in the class room.

    Plant the seed of curiosity early on, and reap the benefits with new waves of scientists and artists, instead of the mainstream administrators, lawyers and a dime a dozen doctors.

    It's an awesome way to teach kids to do what they really want and not the "safe choice" soulless job.

    At times of crisis like these, we need thinkers and creators, not paper pushers and bureaucrats.
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